Sue’s Monday Morning Meditation - Considering God
02/19/2024
Starry Summer Night at Rose Lake by Ron Reeve
Scripture:
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother …?
(Psalm 8:3-4 MSG)
Comments:
The conversation is a vivid memory. Riding with a colleague to the airport, the younger woman, commented seemingly out of the blue, “You know some people don’t believe in God because they can’t figure him out.”
Without taking time to formulate a response, I replied, “I have committed everything I hold most dearly to God—my marriage, my children and grandchildren, my health, my career, my death, and even my eternity. I don’t want to trust all that to someone I can “figure out!” I need my God to be a whole lot bigger than my understanding.”
A few months later, my colleague moved on to a new job in a sunnier location. We had no contact until she called saying she heard I was coming to a meeting at the same time she would be in the area. “Do you want to meet for dinner?” she asked. I eagerly accepted the invitation.
Over scrumptious seafood, she opened pages in her story and said she wanted me to know she decided to cross the line of faith into fully trusting the message of Jesus. She was happy with her decision and loved learning and growing in a vibrant faith community. It was a lovely experience.
I love the thought that God is both INFINITE and INTIMATE. Dr. Evan Howard, philosopher, and expert in the field of Christian spiritual formation, explains in more scholarly terms (The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality):
“This God we know and enjoy and who knows and enjoys us, this self-existent Trinity, both transcends and is present to us in time and space. God is both infinitely apart from us and [intimately] deepest within us. From these aspects of God’s character, we gain a sense of the transcendence and immanence of God ….”
Today’s prayer is taken from Psalm 139, in which David expresses awe of God’s intimate immanence and acknowledges the mystery of God’s incomprehensible transcendence.
Prayer:
1O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar ….
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence? …
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you ….
23 God, [You] know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
From Psalm 139:1-24 (ESV)
Reflection Question:
When you consider both the transcendence and immanence of God, what thoughts or feelings arise? Dismissal? Resistance? Avoidance? Annoyance? Curiosity? Acceptance? Wonder? No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, consider talking with God about whatever you feel.
Blessings on your meditations this Monday!
